Hooton on charter schools
December 9th, 2011 at 11:28 am by David FarrarMatthew Hooton writes in the NBR:
Charter schools have received most attention.
So obviously will this idea benefit the most disadvantaged children that it is shameful it wasn’t implemented years ago, especially as it can be done under existing legislation.
The concept is almost left-wing – that all children are different and require a school environment tailored to their needs, not the ideologies of bureaucrats or unionists – and New Zealand already has charter schools of sorts.
Indeed the schools are not new, but the extra flexibility they may have could be.
The Muldoon government first supported Te Kohanga Reo in 1982. Lockwood Smith followed in 1993, providing the first funding for Kura Kaupapa Maori, Wharekura and Wananga.
Catholic integrated schools and those based on particular pedagogies such as Montessori or Steiner are also effectively charter schools. Dr Smith’s tenure saw the first state-funded Hare Krishna school.
The idea is to give poor families the same educational choices as rich families, and bring new ideas into the system.
But there will be opposition!
The teacher unions, of course, oppose the idea with extraordinary ferocity. They know that, if the charter school trial is successful, their vision of a single system, controlled by them, with no ability to compare either students or schools, and therefore no possibility of accountability, will be dashed. They also know that, without their intervention, the trial is likely to succeed.
Vicious campaigns will be launched against the new schools and the teachers who work in them.
Pickets will try to prevent students from attending them. The atmosphere the unions engender will encourage attacks on students planning to attend the schools …
Now Matthew may be resorting to a bit of hyperbole here, but if he is correct could we see scenes like the below in New Zealand?
December 9th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
I am licking my lips for a full scale fight a bit like when a Black man tried to enrol in a white supremacist University during the Kennedy years. Fantastic. Maybe the teachers’ unions can be finished off for good. But the ground has to be prepared, the issue a popular one for the Government, but once it is ready to go the Government should be resolute and crush them, with armed guards, water cannons, dogs and tanks, – the whole nine yards.
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Here’s a challenge for you DPF, why don’t you spend a day at a school, go into the staff room and actually talk to some teachers. Find out what they really think and what they would like to see the government do to improve things.
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
The stronger that the union response is against charter schools, the more popular the National government will become.
Vote:People have had a gutsful of the thuggish unions and their selfish, utterly-transparent “patch-protecting” tactics. Bring on the charter schools and to hell with the unions.
December 9th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Problem – whilst many children go through school and make excellent progress there is a worrying 20% who do not.
Vote:This 20% are near destined to struggle in life as will their offspring.
Union Solution. Do Nothing. Do Nothing . Do not change a thing. Stick fingers in ears and close eyes.
National solution. Trial 2 charter schools and introduce mandatory assessment called National Standards and telling parents about their child’s progress in plain English.
Union outcome. Happy teacher union executives.
National outcome Possibly well educated children and happy parents.
December 9th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
If ‘diversity’ is good for everyone, it should be good for the public education system too. Leftists like ‘diversity’ don’t they? Or is it just another of their manifold lies? ‘Diversity’ for thee, but not for me.
cheers
David Prosser
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Find out what they really think and what they would like to see the government do to improve things.
Why? What do you think they’ll say?
More of the same thing which has seen a remarkable decline in standards since the eighties? You think it might be something like “let’s have even more of that, and quickly?”
What do you think they’d say, YWD?
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
…but if he is correct could we see scenes like the below in New Zealand?
‘Hooton’s probably WAY off and I I don’t think that’s credible frankly but WHAT IF HE’S RIGHT?! Think about it’.
A bit much a think DPF.
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
I wonder if all the people loving the charter schools idea will like it so much when a Muslim school is set up (some of the anti-Muslim rants on this site are disgraceful) or will like it when Destiny Church start setting up schools.
Vote:It will be interesting to observe!
December 9th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Pickets to stop students attending schools? Ye, gods attacks on students! Hooten is losing it.
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
@bc – “Anti-Muslim” rants? I’m very strongly anti-Islam, and I make no apology for that. Being against Islam is not “racist”. Islam is not a race.
It is more a violent, subversive ideology, rather than a “religion”. Government and religion are one and the same in Islam – they cannot be separated.
But hey – don’t just take my word for it. Take that of Robert Spencer, the foremost Western scholar on Islam (and critic of it). Here is his intro to Islam-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam-101.html
If you’re really keen, join in the forums at http://forum09.faithfreedom.org/ and put forward your views that Islam is all “unicorns flying over rainbows.”
Vote:You will soon be brought to your senses – most likely by ex-Muslims (there are a number of them there).
December 9th, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Perhaps pickets are a bridge too far, but that quote above is reasonable, given how fanatically they resisted the mild National Standards. I mean it’s quite obvious while not all teachers are completely mental, every single one of their groups which claim to represent them are. That’s proven reality.
So like I say, reasonable prediction, up to there.
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 6:29 pm
So will you be happy or unhappy with a Muslim charter school then thor42?
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Well of course this is a typical National compromise to the long held ACT policy of vouchers for parents to spend at any school of their choice.
Vote:Another National labour lite cop out.
December 9th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
So many ad hominem attacks on other groups of people here … so few real arguments for charter schools…
Vote:Interesting. .
December 9th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
so few real arguments for charter schools
Competition = Pursuit of excellence = overall improvement including the bonus of punishing by laughing at and thereby humiliating the useless losers who hopefully disappear from the industry.
None of which is facilitated by the nursing of the losers which the system now entails, not just encourages, but indeed entails.
Note: By “losers” of course one doesn’t mean failing pupils. Der. No. Not at all. By losers one means of course the useless teachers who can’t or won’t improve their own performance. Pupils are blameless in this. It’s not their fault. And if a pupil gets low grades relative to other pupils in their socio-economic category, why whose fault is it, if not their teachers?
That’s what lefties hate Mellie. The fact they all disguise that by pretending it’s about pupil’s failures, is a big tell to the wise on this issue.
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Reid: “And if a pupil gets low grades relative to other pupils in their socio-economic category, why whose fault is it, if not their teachers?”
Strange, I thought you would be a big supporter of personal responsibilty and not playing the victim reid.
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 9:59 pm
The union propaganda machine will be going hard out in schools
communicating their warped sense of perspective and spreading their lies
Any sane person going though teacher training can see the leftist bullshit infecting our education system
Why shouldn’t parents send their children to a school that reflects their culture
Some will send there kids to fail at weirdo cults like Church or racial (maori) and Montessori or Steiner schools
Others will use such a change to enhance their children’s chances of a future
choice
Vote:December 9th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
I thought you would be a big supporter of personal responsibilty and not playing the victim reid.
If you’re a kid you’re on auto-pilot and whatever happens to you isn’t within one’s purvue. That’s pretty much true till 13-15. years old. With poor kids these days which didn’t used to be but now is, thanks to lefties, teachers are often the only decent role models they have.
Not all, not even most poor kids, but with too many of them, this is in fact the case. Their parents are at best appalling role models and at worst obstructive in any kid who shows an interest in getting educated.
This is true in a certain demographic, it’s there, can’t be denied.
So if ever teachers are critical, they are critical here, most of all. The best.
And how do you tell if they are or not, without measuring say one Otara classroom against another?
But no, this is nasty, say almost all teachers. This is winners and losers and not within the ballpark.
This wouldn’t be bad, if those same people actually came up with a viable real-world alternative for this problem which doesn’t involve giving all these people a comfortable three-bedroom fully insulated house for free for doing nothing for their whole lives. For this is apparently how we solve poverty.
I know you’re not one of these people bc. But unless and until we start calling out bad useless hopeless teachers the children will continue to suffer and I for one, think everyone should think of the children.
Vote: